Participants in many activities utilize lower extremity supportive products to assist or improve their performance. In some activities, the products are also necessary for coupling the user in some manner to a required sports apparatus. For example, it is necessary for skiers to use some form of boots to couple their lower extremities to skis. A skier's boot both provides support and encourages the skier to position their lower extremity in a particular position that is designed to maximize performance. Boots are generally optimized according to a single foot mold. Additional sized boots are generally created by enlarging or reducing the size of the original boot by a standardized amount. However, participants have a wide range of foot shapes, sizes, flexibilities, and performance abilities. Therefore, it is unlikely that a boot that has been sized up or down a specific amount from a standardized mold will match the unique characteristics of a particular participant's foot. This guaranteed mismatch results in a decrease in performance and the possibility of discomfort or pain.
Conventional lower extremity customization systems attempt to conform a lower extremity product that has been sized up or down a specific amount from a standardized mold. These systems include adding pads, applying force to pressure points, removing materials, etc. These after-market customization or “boot fitting” techniques are unreliable and may result in damaging the integrity of the boot. In addition, these techniques are generally done on site. Therefore, a boot fitter in one location may make radically different adjustments than a boot fitter at an independent location.
A second type of customization process involves the utilization of a liner or injection of a foam material that is conformed to a user's unique lower extremity characteristics. The process of conforming the liner or liner substance may include heating or injection while a user positions their lower extremity in the product. These systems may help accommodate a standardized lower extremity product to a specific participant's lower extremity dimensions, but they are limited. For example, a heat-treated liner is unlikely to relieve foot pressure for a person with severe foot eversion. In addition, these systems are ureliable and inconvenient. A heat-treated foam liner will deform to provide less support in the desired position over time. Likewise, an injected foam system must be reapplied after each time that a user removes the boots. In addition to the other limitations, these after-market systems still fail to provide the same level of performance to a participant that would be afforded if the participant's lower extremity matched the original mold used to create the product.
Other customization processes are designed to manufacture lower extremity products that specifically match the characteristics of the sole or bottom surface of an individual's foot. These processes involve either two-dimensionally tracing or three-dimensionally mapping the sole of the foot. However, the remainder of the lower extremity product is still made according to a standardized mold or according to a standardized format. Essentially these processes involve manufacturing customized footbeds or orthodics which are incorporated into a standardized lower extremity product such as a boot. The performance and comfort characteristics of a lower extremity product are not limited to the region in which the sole of a user's foot contacts the product. Therefore, these customization processes also fails to provide a level of customization necessary to maximize performance and accommodate the individual lower-extremity characteristics that affect comfort.
All of the existing customization systems fail to produce a truly customized product in a cost-efficient manner. Therefore, there is a need in the industry for a method of providing a customized lower extremity product that is truly customized to the unique three-dimensional characteristics of a customer's lower extremities for use in a particular activity.